Our previous study showed that the morning systolic blood pressure target should be <120 mmHg to prevent the onset or progression of diabetic nephropathy in patients with type 2 diabetes. In this study, we examined the prognostic values of home and clinical blood pressure for first cardiovascular events in the same cohort. Morning and evening home blood pressure measurements were obtained in triplicate for 14 consecutive days from the beginning of the study in a retrospective cohort of 1081 type 2 diabetes patients (44.5% women; median age 66.0 years) with no history of macrovascular complications. The first major cardiovascular event was the primary endpoint; the risk was examined by the Cox proportional hazards model. After a mean follow-up of 6.63 years, first-time cardiovascular events occurred in 119 patients (incidence, 16.6/1000 patient-years). Baseline morning systolic blood pressure (hazard ratio: 1.14, 95% CI 1.01-1.28) significantly predicted cardiovascular events, whereas clinical blood pressure did not. The adjusted hazard ratio (95% CI) for the incidence of cardiovascular events in patients with morning systolic blood pressure ≥135 mmHg tended to be higher than that in those with morning systolic blood pressure <125 mmHg [1.67 (0.94-2.97)]. Elevated home blood pressure measurement is a predictor of future cardiovascular events in type 2 diabetes patients and may be superior to clinical blood pressure measurement in this regard.
Keywords: Cardiovascular events; Home blood pressure measurement; Multicenter study; Type 2 diabetes.